What I’m Grateful For

If you’ve followed me for the past year, you know that I’m a breast cancer survivor. Lately, I’ve been noticing how much I simultaneously want to forget that the whole thing ever happened–and I also want to remember. I want to forget because I’m human. I want to push away the pain of the doctor’s visits, the tests, the physical changes, the worry about recurrence.

But, I sense that sweeping it under some mental rug isn’t the best idea. Because if I remember my breast cancer diagnosis wisely, then I remember how grateful I am to be alive.

The truth is, I never quite felt the aliveness of life until this diagnosis. Once I could palpably feel how this life will go away someday, it was like a switch flipped and the simple acting of living just seemed ridiculously fun. Painting my nails pink or eating sushi with friends or going to a yoga class. Worrying about my “career” or why my kid won’t let me brush her teeth or what kind of flowers to plant in my garden–I now see how all of these things are a giant privilege. Some days it feels just plain silly how much amazing stuff we get to do in the course of a life.

I still get grumpy more often than I should. I still bitch and moan about ridiculous shit. I still worry uselessly. But when I remember, when a little voice kicks in that says, “This could go away at any moment…” I wake up again. And I’m grateful.

And here’s the micro list of what I’m grateful for. I like using my Instagram feed to look back over my year. For the past few years I’ve used Artifact Uprising to create a yearly Instagram book. I highly recommend this. They do a beautiful job and it’s super easy.

When I look back at my feed I remember how all of those small, mundane moments are so meaningful. So here goes. I’m grateful for:

• All of our travels – to LA, London, Ohio, and Hawaii.

• Saturday mornings at home and cozy breakfasts with our family.

• All of the fun things we get to do now that Sofia is older like making sparkly Easter eggs, going to high tea at Fortnum & Mason, or looking at fairy gardens.

• Women who make me laugh and who inspire me and who are kicking ass at making the world a better place. (Hello Amy Schumer, Elizabeth Gilbert, Brene Brown.)

• Ladylike shoes and Onzie printed yoga pants and great outerwear. (I live in a place where you must love great outerwear.)

• Coming back to my yoga practice full force and feeling how magically the body heals itself.

• My husband. Because. He’s the best.

• Sofia Sofia, Sofia, Sofia. I’m grateful that she’s growing so tall and eating butter by the handful. I’m grateful for how she grabs me and kisses me at random times. I’m grateful for how often she says she wants to spend “allllll day with you Mama.” And I’m grateful that she spends half the day in preschool so that I have some time to work on projects of my own.

I’m grateful that she has a little toy laptop that she enjoys “taking to work.” (I like that’s already planning her career 🙂 I’m grateful for how connected she is to her Dad. I’m grateful for the sound of her voice first thing in the morning.

I’m grateful for the other day when we were playing grocery store and she was leading me around our living room by the elbow. It wasn’t just the game, it was that I could imagine us traveling through Europe someday, her leading me around by the elbow and showing me the sights. I imagine she’ll be simultaneously comforted and totally annoyed by her batty old mom. And me? I’ll just be…grateful.

2 Comments

Thank you for a wonderful message of gratitude… It says it all… All the little, everyday things we forget to be grateful for.
I am grateful to you for posting this.
Happy thanksgiving to all of you
Kate

You make me smile while I am on my 9h journey back from Aarhus Denmark to Nuernberg Germany. I ve spent 7 h in Cath Lab helping with a heart procedure showing some technology to operate better and to use less anaethesia. I am grateful to be calm even if I had to be on a train for 18h both ways instead of 6 scary stormy flights like last week. I am grateful for the calmness that yoga gives me in challenging moments like today when you find out that the local team did not prep right. But who am I to complain…I help to do better next time…I am grateful for being patient with my muscles after a year of losses and 4 home movings, kids moving out and for my injured ham string…I will understand why I was presented to this challenging year…I am grateful that I could effort some Yoga classes and 9 month school to become a SMC Coach and most important I am getting married next month and my kids are our witnesses ❤️
Grateful to know you a little

Andrea Ferretti and Jason Crandell are a husband and wife team who have been teaching, writing about, and living their yoga for nearly two decades. Andrea is creative director for Jason Crandell Yoga Method. Jason is an internationally recognized vinyasa yoga teacher. They live together in San Francisco with their full-time boss, Sofia-Rose Crandell, age 6. To find out where you can train with Jason live, check out the Schedule page.